Live "heavy weirdness" concert launches Ward Beecher Planetarium's new season

The Ward Beecher Planetarium at Youngstown State University kicks off the 2019-20 season this weekend with a live concert featuring the “heavy weirdness” of local band MoonStation Burning and special effects/lighting on the planetarium’s dome.

The opening weekend live show is scheduled for 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Sept. 13 and 14, and 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 14. MoonStation Burning performs Transmission to special effects from Sky-Skan Definiti Theater System and ChromaCove Lighting.

A description of MoonStation Burning on its website begins: “We rely on instinct. Musical engagement. Sonic correspondence. The exchange of ideas and the distortion of those ideas in order to create an entirely new idea.” And it concludes, “It’s a long trip that we are on. Tabs, caps and light; sound, smoke and fury; whatever the vehicle, get in, we’re going…”

The season also includes the continuation of the Ward Beecher Planetarium Lecture Series, featuring astronomers giving live presentations on the latest findings on a wide variety of topics.

Last season, the planetarium hosted 11,088 visitors at public shows and an additional 8,152 elementary school students from school trips, for a total attendance of nearly 20,000 visitors. The planetarium, which also hosts YSU Astronomy classes, opened in March 1967 on the YSU campus thanks to a $1.6 million donation from Youngstown industrialist and philanthropist Ward Beecher.